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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 91-1600
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HAZEN PAPER COMPANY, et al., PETITIONERS v.
WALTER F. BIGGINS
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the first circuit
[April 20, 1993]

  Justice O'Connor delivered the opinion of the Court.
  In this case we clarify the standards for liability and
liquidated damages under the Age Discrimination in
Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 81 Stat. 602, as
amended, 29 U. S. C. 621 et seq.
                            I
  Petitioner Hazen Paper Company manufactures coated,
laminated, and printed paper and paperboard.  The
company is owned and operated by two cousins, petition-
ers Robert Hazen and Thomas N. Hazen.  The Hazens
hired respondent Walter F. Biggins as their technical
director in 1977.  They fired him in 1986, when he was
62 years old.
  Respondent brought suit against petitioners in the
United States District Court for the District of Massachu-
setts, alleging a violation of the ADEA.  He claimed that
age had been a determinative factor in petitioners' deci-
sion to fire him.  Petitioners contested this claim, assert-
ing instead that respondent had been fired for doing
business with competitors of Hazen Paper.  The case was
tried before a jury, which rendered a verdict for respon-
dent on his ADEA claim and also found violations of the
Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974
(ERISA), 88 Stat. 895, 510, 29 U. S. C. 1140, and state
law.  On the ADEA count, the jury specifically found that
petitioners -willfully- violated the statute.  Under 7(b)
of the ADEA, 29 U. S. C. 626(b), a -willful- violation
gives rise to liquidated damages.
  Petitioners moved for judgment notwithstanding the
verdict.  The District Court granted the motion with
respect to a state-law claim and the finding of -willful-
ness- but otherwise denied it.  An appeal ensued.  953
F. 2d 1405 (CA1 1992).  The United States Court of
Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed judgment for
respondent on both the ADEA and ERISA counts, and
reversed judgment notwithstanding the verdict for petition-
ers as to -willfulness.-
  In affirming the judgments of liability, the Court of
Appeals relied heavily on the evidence that petitioners had
fired respondent in order to prevent his pension benefits
from vesting.  That evidence, as construed most favorably
to respondent by the court, showed that the Hazen Paper
pension plan had a 10-year vesting period and that
respondent would have reached the 10-year mark had he
worked -a few more weeks- after being fired.  Id., at
1411.  There was also testimony that petitioners had
offered to retain respondent as a consultant to Hazen
Paper, in which capacity he would not have been entitled
to receive pension benefits.  Id., at 1412.  The Court of
Appeals found this evidence of pension interference to be
sufficient for ERISA liability, id., at 1416, and also gave
it considerable emphasis in upholding ADEA liability.
After summarizing all the testimony tending to show age
discrimination, the court stated:
      -Based on the foregoing evidence, the jury could
reasonably have found that Thomas Hazen decided to
fire [respondent] before his pension rights vested and
used the confidentiality agreement [that petitioners
had asked respondent to sign] as a means to that
end.  The jury could also have reasonably found that
age was inextricably intertwined with the decision to
fire [respondent].  If it were not for [respondent's] age,
sixty-two, his pension rights would not have been
within a hairbreadth of vesting.  [Respondent] was
fifty-two years old when he was hired; his pension
rights vested in ten years.-  Id., at 1412.
  As to the issue of -willfulness- under 7(b) of the
ADEA, the Court of Appeals adopted and applied the
definition set out in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v.
Thurston, 469 U. S. 111 (1985).  In Thurston, we held
that the airline's facially discriminatory job-transfer policy
was not a -willful- ADEA violation because the airline
neither -knew [nor] showed reckless disregard for the
matter of whether- the policy contravened the statute.
Id., at 128 (internal quotation marks omitted).  The Court
of Appeals found sufficient evidence to satisfy the
Thurston standard, and ordered that respondent be
awarded liquidated damages equal to and in addition to
the underlying damages of $419,454.38.  953 F. 2d, at
1415-1416.
  We granted certiorari to decide two questions.  505
U. S. ___ (1992).  First, does an employer's interference
with the vesting of pension benefits violate the ADEA?
Second, does the Thurston standard for liquidated dam-
ages apply to the case where the predicate ADEA violation
is not a formal, facially discriminatory policy, as in
Thurston, but rather an informal decision by the employer
that was motivated by the employee's age?

                           II
                            A
  The courts of appeals repeatedly have faced the question
whether an employer violates the ADEA by acting on the
basis of a factor, such as an employee's pension status or
seniority, that is empirically correlated with age.  Com-
pare White v. Westinghouse Electric Co., 862 F. 2d 56, 62
(CA3 1988) (firing of older employee to prevent vesting of
pension benefits violates ADEA); Metz v. Transit Mix, Inc.,
828 F. 2d 1202 (CA7 1987) (firing of older employee to
save salary costs resulting from seniority violates ADEA)
with Williams v. General Motors Corp., 656 F. 2d 120,
130, n. 17 (CA5 1981) (-[S]eniority and age discrimination
are unrelated. . . . We state without equivocation that the
seniority a given plaintiff has accumulated entitles him
to no better or worse treatment in an age discrimination
suit.-), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 943 (1982); EEOC v. Clay
Printing Co., 955 F. 2d 936, 942 (CA4 1992) (emphasizing
distinction between employee's age and years of service).
We now clarify that there is no disparate treatment under
the ADEA when the factor motivating the employer is
some feature other than the employee's age.
  We long have distinguished between -disparate treat-
ment- and -disparate impact- theories of employment
discrimination.
      -`Disparate treatment' . . . is the most easily under-
stood type of discrimination.  The employer simply
treats some people less favorably than others because
of their race, color, religion [or other protected charac-
teristics.]  Proof of discriminatory motive is critical,
although it can in some situations be inferred from
the mere fact of differences in treatment. . . .
      -[C]laims that stress `disparate impact' [by contrast]
involve employment practices that are facially neutral
in their treatment of different groups but that in fact
fall more harshly on one group than another and
cannot be justified by business necessity.  Proof of
discriminatory motive . . . is not required under a
disparate-impact theory.-  Teamsters v. United States,
431 U. S. 324, 335, n. 15 (1977) (citation omitted)
(construing Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964).
The disparate treatment theory is of course available
under the ADEA, as the language of that statute makes
clear.  -It shall be unlawful for an employer . . . to fail
or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual or other-
wise discriminate against any individual with respect to
his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of
employment, because of such individual's age.-  29
U. S. C. 623(a)(1) (emphasis added).  See Thurston,
supra, at 120-125 (affirming ADEA liability under dispa-
rate treatment theory).  By contrast, we have never
decided whether a disparate impact theory of liability is
available under the ADEA, see Markham v. Geller, 451
U. S. 945 (1981) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting from denial
of certiorari), and we need not do so here.  Respondent
claims only that he received disparate treatment.
  In a disparate treatment case, liability depends on
whether the protected trait (under the ADEA, age) actu-
ally motivated the employer's decision.  See, e.g., United
States Postal Service Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U. S.
711 (1983); Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine,
450 U. S. 248, 252-256 (1981); Furnco Construction Corp.
v. Waters, 438 U. S. 567, 576-578 (1978).  The employer
may have relied upon a formal, facially discriminatory
policy requiring adverse treatment of employees with that
trait.  See, e.g., Thurston, supra; Los Angeles Dept. of
Water & Power v. Manhart, 435 U. S. 702, 704-718
(1978).  Or the employer may have been motivated by the
protected trait on an ad hoc, informal basis.  See, e.g.,
Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U. S. 564 (1985); Team-
sters, supra, at 334-343.  Whatever the employer's
decisionmaking process, a disparate treatment claim
cannot succeed unless the employee's protected trait
actually played a role in that process and had a determi-
native influence on the outcome.
  Disparate treatment, thus defined, captures the essence
of what Congress sought to prohibit in the ADEA.  It is
the very essence of age discrimination for an older em-
ployee to be fired because the employer believes that
productivity and competence decline with old age.  As we
explained in EEOC v. Wyoming, 460 U. S. 226 (1983),
Congress' promulgation of the ADEA was prompted by its
concern that older workers were being deprived of employ-
ment on the basis of inaccurate and stigmatizing stereo-
types.
-Although age discrimination rarely was based on the
sort of animus motivating some other forms of dis-
crimination, it was based in large part on stereotypes
unsupported by objective fact . . . . Moreover, the
available empirical evidence demonstrated that arbi-
trary age lines were in fact generally unfounded and
that, as an overall matter, the performance of older
workers was at least as good as that of younger
workers.-  Id., at 231.
Thus the ADEA commands that -employers are to evalu-
ate [older] employees . . . on their merits and not their
age.-  Western Air Lines, Inc. v. Criswell, 472 U. S. 400,
422 (1985).  The employer cannot rely on age as a proxy
for an employee's remaining characteristics, such as
productivity, but must instead focus on those factors
directly.
  When the employer's decision is wholly motivated by
factors other than age, the problem of inaccurate and
stigmatizing stereotypes disappears.  This is true even if
the motivating factor is correlated with age, as pension
status typically is.  Pension plans typically provide that
an employee's accrued benefits will become nonforfeitable,
or -vested,- once the employee completes a certain number
of years of service with the employer.  See 1 J.
Mamorsky, Employee Benefits Law 5.03 (1992).  On
average, an older employee has had more years in the
work force than a younger employee, and thus may well
have accumulated more years of service with a particular
employer.  Yet an employee's age is analytically distinct
from his years of service.  An employee who is younger
than 40, and therefore outside the class of older workers
as defined by the ADEA, see 29 U. S. C. 631(a), may
have worked for a particular employer his entire career,
while an older worker may have been newly hired.
Because age and years of service are analytically distinct,
an employer can take account of one while ignoring the
other, and thus it is incorrect to say that a decision based
on years of service is necessarily -age-based.-
  The instant case is illustrative.  Under the Hazen Paper
pension plan, as construed by the Court of Appeals, an
employee's pension benefits vest after the employee
completes 10 years of service with the company.  Perhaps
it is true that older employees of Hazen Paper are more
likely to be -close to vesting- than younger employees.
Yet a decision by the company to fire an older employee
solely because he has nine-plus years of service and
therefore is -close to vesting- would not constitute discrim-
inatory treatment on the basis of age.  The prohibited
stereotype (-Older employees are likely to be ___-) would
not have figured in this decision, and the attendant
stigma would not ensue.  The decision would not be the
result of an inaccurate and denigrating generalization
about age, but would rather represent an accurate judg-
ment about the employee-that he indeed is -close to
vesting.-
  We do not mean to suggest that an employer lawfully
could fire an employee in order to prevent his pension
benefits from vesting.  Such conduct is actionable under
510 of ERISA, as the Court of Appeals rightly found in
affirming judgment for respondent under that statute.
See Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon, 498 U. S. 133,
142-143 (1990).  But it would not, without more, violate
the ADEA.  That law requires the employer to ignore an
employee's age (absent a statutory exemption or defense);
it does not specify further characteristics that an employer
must also ignore.  Although some language in our prior
decisions might be read to mean that an employer violates
the ADEA whenever its reason for firing an employee is
improper in any respect, see McDonnell Douglas Corp. v.
Green, 411 U. S. 792, 802 (1973) (creating proof frame-
work applicable to ADEA) (employer must have -legiti-
mate, nondiscriminatory reason- for action against em-
ployee), this reading is obviously incorrect.  For example,
it cannot be true that an employer who fires an older
black worker because the worker is black thereby violates
the ADEA.  The employee's race is an improper reason,
but it is improper under Title VII, not the ADEA.
 We do not preclude the possibility that an employer who
targets employees with a particular pension status on the
assumption that these employees are likely to be older
thereby engages in age discrimination.  Pension status
may be a proxy for age, not in the sense that the ADEA
makes the two factors equivalent, cf. Metz, 828 F. 2d, at
1208 (using -proxy- to mean statutory equivalence), but
in the sense that the employer may suppose a correlation
between the two factors and act accordingly.  Nor do we
rule out the possibility of dual liability under ERISA and
the ADEA where the decision to fire the employee was
motivated both by the employee's age and by his pension
status.  Finally, we do not consider the special case where
an employee is about to vest in pension benefits as a
result of his age, rather than years of service, see 1
Mamorsky, supra, at 5.02[2], and the employer fires the
employee in order to prevent vesting.  That case is not
presented here.  Our holding is simply that an employer
does not violate the ADEA just by interfering with an
older employee's pension benefits that would have vested
by virtue of the employee's years of service.
  Besides the evidence of pension interference, the Court
of Appeals cited some additional evidentiary support for
ADEA liability.  Although there was no direct evidence of
petitioners' motivation, except for two isolated comments
by the Hazens, the Court of Appeals did note the follow-
ing indirect evidence: Respondent was asked to sign a
confidentiality agreement, even though no other employee
had been required to do so, and his replacement was a
younger man who was given a less onerous agreement.
953 F. 2d, at 1411.  In the ordinary ADEA case, indirect
evidence of this kind may well suffice to support liability
if the plaintiff also shows that the employer's explanation
for its decision-here, that respondent had been disloyal
to Hazen Paper by doing business with its competitors-is
-`unworthy of credence.'-  Aikens, 460 U. S., at 716 (quot-
ing Burdine, 450 U. S., at 256).  But inferring age-motiva-
tion from the implausibility of the employer's explanation
may be problematic in cases where other unsavory mo-
tives, such as pension interference, were present.  This
issue is now before us in the Title VII context, see Hicks
v. St. Mary's Honor Center, 970 F. 2d 487 (CA8 1992),
cert. granted, 506 U. S. ___ (1993), and we will not
address it prematurely.  We therefore remand the case for
the Court of Appeals to reconsider whether the jury had
sufficient evidence to find an ADEA violation.

                            B
  Because we remand for further proceedings, we also
address the second question upon which certiorari was
granted: the meaning of -willful- in 7(b) of the ADEA,
which provides for liquidated damages in the case of a
-willful- violation.
  In Thurston, we thoroughly analyzed 7(b) and con-
cluded that -a violation of the Act [would be] `willful' if
the employer knew or showed reckless disregard for the
matter of whether its conduct was prohibited by the
ADEA.-  469 U. S., at 126 (internal quotation marks and
ellipsis omitted).  We sifted through the legislative history
of 7(b), which had derived from 16(a) of the Fair Labor
Standards Act (FLSA), 52 Stat. 1069, as amended, 29
U. S. C. 216(a), and determined that the accepted
judicial interpretation of 16(a) at the time of the passage
of the ADEA supported the -knowledge or reckless disre-
gard- standard.  See 469 U. S., at 126.  We found that
this standard was consistent with the meaning of -willful-
in other criminal and civil statutes.  See id., at 126-127.
Finally, we observed that Congress aimed to create a
-two-tiered liability scheme,- under which some but not
all ADEA violations would give rise to liquidated damages.
We therefore rejected a broader definition of -willful-
providing for liquidated damages whenever the employer
knew that the ADEA was -in the picture.-  See id., at
127-128.
  In McLaughlin v. Richland Shoe Co., 486 U. S. 128
(1988), a FLSA case, we reaffirmed the Thurston standard.
The question in Richland Shoe was whether the limita-
tions provision of the FLSA, creating a 3-year period for
-willful- violations, should be interpreted consistently with
Thurston.  We answered that question in the affirmative.
-The word `willful' is widely used in the law, and,
although it has not by any means been given a
perfectly consistent interpretation, it is generally
understood to refer to conduct that is not merely
negligent.  The standard of willfulness that was
adopted in Thurston-that the employer either knew
or showed reckless disregard for the matter of
whether its conduct was prohibited by the statute-is
surely a fair reading of the plain language of the
Act.-  486 U. S., at 133.
Once again we rejected the -in the picture standard-
because it would -virtually obliterat[e] any distinction
between willful and nonwillful violations.-  Id., at
132-133.
  Surprisingly, the courts of appeals continue to be
confused about the meaning of the term -willful- in 7(b)
of the ADEA.  A number of circuits have declined to apply
Thurston to what might be called an informal disparate
treatment case-where age has entered into the employ-
ment decision on an ad hoc, informal basis rather than
through a formal policy.  At least one circuit refuses to
impose liquidated damages in such a case unless the
employer's conduct was -outrageous.-  See, e.g., Lockhart
v. Westinghouse Credit Corp., 879 F. 2d 43, 57-58 (CA3
1989).  Another requires that the underlying evidence of
liability be direct rather than circumstantial.  See, e.g.,
Neufeld v. Searle Laboratories, 884 F. 2d 335, 340 (CA8
1989).  Still others have insisted that age be the -predom-
inant- rather than simply a determinative factor.  See,
e.g., Spulak v. K Mart Corp., 894 F. 2d 1150, 1159 (CA10
1990); Schrand v. Federal Pacific Elec. Co., 851 F. 2d 152,
158 (CA6 1988).  The chief concern of these circuits has
been that the application of Thurston would defeat the
two-tiered system of liability intended by Congress,
because every employer that engages in informal age
discrimination knows or recklessly disregards the illegality
of its conduct.
  We believe that this concern is misplaced.  The ADEA
does not provide for liquidated damages -where consistent
with the principle of a two-tiered liability scheme.-  It
provides for liquidated damages where the violation was
-willful.-  That definition must be applied here unless we
overrule Thurston, or unless there is some inherent
difference between this case and Thurston to cause a shift
in the meaning of the word -willful.-
  As for the first possibility, petitioners have not per-
suaded us that Thurston was wrongly decided, let alone
that we should depart from the rule of stare decisis.  The
two-tiered liability principle was simply one interpretive
tool among several that we used in Thurston to decide
what Congress meant by the word -willful,- and in any
event we continue to believe that the -knowledge or
reckless disregard- standard will create two tiers of
liability across the range of ADEA cases.  It is not true
that an employer who knowingly relies on age in reaching
its decision invariably commits a knowing or reckless
violation of the ADEA.  The ADEA is not an unqualified
prohibition on the use of age in employment decisions, but
affords the employer a -bona fide occupational qualifica-
tion- defense, see 29 U. S. C. 623(f)(1), and exempts
certain subject matters and persons, see, e.g., 623(f)(2)
(exemption for bona fide seniority systems and employee
benefit plans); 631(c) (exemption for bona fide executives
and high policymakers).  If an employer incorrectly but
in good faith and nonrecklessly believes that the statute
permits a particular age-based decision, then liquidated
damages should not be imposed.  See Richland Shoe,
supra, at 135, n. 13.  Indeed, in Thurston itself we upheld
liability but reversed an award of liquidated damages
because the employer -acted [nonrecklessly] and in good
faith in attempting to determine whether [its] plan would
violate the ADEA.-  469 U. S., at 129.
  Nor do we see how the instant case can be dis-
tinguished from Thurston, assuming that petitioners did
indeed fire respondent because of his age.  The only
distinction between Thurston and the case before us is the
existence of formal discrimination.  Age entered into the
employment decision there through a formal and publi-
cized policy, and not as an undisclosed factor motivating
the employer on an ad hoc basis, which is what respon-
dent alleges occurred here.  But surely an employer's
reluctance to acknowledge its reliance on the forbidden
factor should not cut against imposing a penalty.  It
would be a wholly circular and self-defeating interpreta-
tion of the ADEA to hold that, in cases where an em-
ployer more likely knows its conduct to be illegal, knowl-
edge alone does not suffice for liquidated damages.  We
therefore reaffirm that the Thurston definition of -will-
ful--that the employer either knew or showed reckless
disregard for the matter of whether its conduct was
prohibited by the statute-applies to all disparate treat-
ment cases under the ADEA.  Once a -willful- violation
has been shown, the employee need not additionally
demonstrate that the employer's conduct was outrageous,
or provide direct evidence of the employer's motivation, or
prove that age was the predominant rather than a deter-
minative factor in the employment decision.
  The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated and
the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.
                                            So ordered.